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Key Quotes for ‘A Christmas Carol’

SCROOGE
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus
population.” (This quote will allow you to talk about Malthusian Theory and about the
workhouses that effected the poor).

“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching,
grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” (This is an asyndetic list where Dickens
is trying to describe how abhorrent a person Scrooge is that he is running out of adjectives).

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese” (imagery to
suggest that Scrooge thinks he is hallucinating the image of Marley when he comes to haunt
him. You also have the plosive sounds of ‘bit, beef, and blot’ and the sibilant sounds of
‘crumb and cheese’ to suggest irritation, frustration, and an element of danger or discomfort).
You can also talk about the irony that Scrooge has a lot of money and only eats ‘bits, blots,
and crumbs’, whereas the Victorian poor suffer with no money and no food.

“The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.” (references the number three and whereas
this number, in terms of numerology, represented bad luck because Scrooge was going to be
haunted, now it shows that he has changed for the good).

“I am as light as a feather, I am a happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as

giddy as a drunken man.” (a series of similes are used by Dickens to indicate how changed
Scrooge feels and that he is now embracing happiness.)

“There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to

condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!” (This is the moral of the novella and is
directed at the Victorian middle class to incite change.)

MARLEY

FRED
Fred thinks of Christmas “as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time” (Here
Fred is listing the qualities that he feels encapsulates Christmas and the reasons that Scrooge
should delight in it. For Fred, as a foil to Scrooge, these adjectives are designed to create a
Dickensian semantic field of Christmas.)

Fred encourages Scrooge to “think of people below them as if they really were fellow-
passengers to the grave.” (This creates some foreshadowing concerning what Scrooge will
see when the spirit of Christmas Yet to Come shows Tiny Tim in a small grave, and
Scrooge’s own funeral, which no one attends. It also highlights the the ley element of the
novella, which is that one person’s change of behaviour can positively influence another’s
life – and even prevent them from dying.)
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“His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it… I am sorry for him; I couldn’t
be angry with him if I tried.” (The juxtaposition between Scrooge and Fred is important,
since they are related. Fred is context with being relatively poor, and despite his uncle’s cruel
words to him every year, Fred still professes that he can’t be angry with him, showing his
forgiving and loving nature – which are two of the tenants of Christianity and the quote above
where he cited them as encapsulating the spirit of Christmas).

BOB CRATCHIT
“I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!” (the fricative sounds are designed to
be ironic here, as although Bob is genuinely toasting Scrooge for the measly amount of food
he is able to supply his family with, Bob is not using fricative sounds to show his frustration,
instead he is choosing to remain positive and grateful).

SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS PAST

SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT
SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME

TINY TIM
“God bless us every one!” (Even in this moment where Tiny Tim is close to death, he still
finds time to attend church and to request blessings for everyone else.)

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.” (The shadows could be
seen as metaphorical, and yet the reader is aware that without medical intervention, Tiny Tim
will die.

“he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be
pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind
men see.” (The fact that Tiny Tim requests blessings for others and not himself shows the
selflessness of a child, and it juxtaposes with how cruel middle-class people, like Scrooge,
are hoarding money and being ignorant to the plight of the poor.) Tiny Tim is referencing
Jesus who cured people of leprosy and who cured people of their blindness).

“he was a little, little child” (the repetition here is important here when the Spirit of
Christmas Yet to Come shows Bob crying over the grave of his son, it evokes a deep sadness
in the reader because this death could have been prevented if only Scrooge had used his
money for good instead of hoarding it. The use of the past tense of ‘was’ is designed as a
reminder that life is temporary and that we must all, according to Dickens, play our part and
support one another). This also allows you to talk about the plight of the poor in Victorian
Britain and the workhouses.

MRS CRATCHIT
“I wish I had him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a
good appetite for it.” (This is an outspoken moment by her, and it would have been frowned
upon for a woman to have such an emotional outburst during the Victorian period. However,
the reader can understand her frustration that her husband is paid poorly, and her son is dying,
and she is powerless. ‘A piece of my mind’ is a metaphor to say that if Scrooge was there,
she would tell him what she thought of him.)

BELLE
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“Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor…[but] you are changed.
When it was made, you were another man.” (The use of the noun ‘contract’ is relevant here
as it has connotations of money, which is what has forced Belle to break their engagement.)

“Another idol has displaced me” (this is a link to religion and a discussion about the evil that
an obsession with money can create. An idol is something that you worship.)